People discussing the pace of change that organizations face in dealing with connected customers, globalization, competition, distributed workforces, innovation, etc. often assert that the world needs a paradigm shift to a new organizational form. I agree with the basic point. However, the way forward is seldom clear and simple when facing the need for dramatic changes in how we think about organizing what we know into practical changes to meet such fundamental challenges.

Just a side note here though. If you are not the sort of person who enjoys using historical insights to think about current challenges you probably don’t want to read the rest of this post.